


One Night

by Dracoduceus



Series: Words With Benefits [7]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alien Hanzo Shimada, Background Zarya/Mei, Idiots in Love, background symmetra/pharah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24083035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracoduceus/pseuds/Dracoduceus
Summary: After the events ofOne Night, Hanzo and McCree have a lot of talking to do.McCree asks for more time and Hanzo promises to wait but he can't help but wonder when his wonderful human mate would return.
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada
Series: Words With Benefits [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1498223
Comments: 18
Kudos: 113





	One Night

With Fareeha there as a mediator of sorts—or, more accurately, as a prompter—they talked. 

Hanzo told the story of how they crashed. How he and Saty had been betrothed, how Zarya was Saty’s guard and their chaperone for their trip. 

Jesse glanced at Fareeha who wiggled her fingers where they were crossed over her chest; the human-style betrothal ring there glittered. It was news to Hanzo though he tried to bury that curiosity for the moment. Had it been there earlier that morning and Hanzo hadn’t noticed? Had it been after Genji had given his blessing? 

No, he decided. It couldn’t have been—like Hanzo, she wouldn’t have cared for such a blessing, especially from Genji. They had known each other for years and hadn’t Saty always said that she found him to be too loud, too brash? His announcement, for all he had replaced Hanzo in the line of succession, would mean very little to her. 

Not that the Hanamura Clan had much sway over her to begin with, so even more so Genji’s “blessing” meant almost nothing to her. Still, with his approval had come a promise that Genji would waive her Clan’s obligation to provide someone in her stead. When Genji would bring word back that he had found Hanzo and Saty alive, that they had chosen to stay behind on Earth, his acceptance that Saty and Hanzo had not mated would soothe whatever prideful pain would bloom between their two clans, but it would do nothing of the scandal. 

“You look like you have a headache,” Jesse said flatly. There was a curl to his lips, almost a sneer, that hurt Hanzo’s hearts to see. “What’s got you all twisted up?”

“I’m considering the...political ramifications,” Hanzo told him truthfully. 

Fareeha snorted. “And you can stop,” she said. “Saty said that your people are not likely to come back and that you’re all more or less considered dead, making you out of line of succession. You have no reason to think about the political ramifications of a people you are no longer going to lead.” 

“What?” Jesse turned to look at Fareeha, then at Hanzo. “ _Political ramifications?_ That’s what you’re thinking of right now? The _political ramifications?_ ” 

Despite himself, Hanzo felt a curl of frustration clench around his hearts. He gritted his teeth. “For most of my life, I’ve been groomed to lead,” he said stiffly. “So forgive me for finding it difficult to not think of it.” 

“You haven’t been thinking of it for the past three years,” Jesse taunted. There was something hurt in his eyes. “Why start now? Or was it because you had gotten so excited to leave?” 

Fareeha sighed. “Play nice, boys.” 

“ _Play nice?_ ” Jesse sputtered. He jabbed a finger at Hanzo. “He’s a fucking _alien_. I’d been married to _an alien_ who, at the first _possible_ moment _tried to leave me!_ Without even a fucking goodbye!”

The other woman sighed again. “You’re not helping,” she informed Jesse. To Hanzo, she said, “Neither are you.” 

“And you are?” Jesse snapped. He turned to Hanzo. “So tell me: why did you decide to leave? And why did you decide to come back?”

Hanzo hesitated, but leaving out information was what had led to him nearly losing his wonderful human mate. “Saty received a message from the fleet two days ago.” Had it only been two days ago? It had felt like it had been months, years. “They were coming to retrieve us.” 

His husband’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “That’s why you were asking that,” he said, his voice low and rumbling in his fury. “Why you were asking about last nights. You knew you were leaving.” 

Doing his best to meet Jesse’s eyes, Hanzo said, “Yes. I knew that the fleet was coming to retrieve us.” 

“Then why are you here? If they were here already?” Jesse mocked, barbed and hurt. 

Again Hanzo hesitated. “My brother was on the ship,” he said. “He was the one that made contact with us. In my absence, I had been presumed dead and taken out of the line of succession. He stepped up in my place.” Fareeha flinched as if in sympathy, though Hanzo wasn’t sure if that was what she had meant. “He said that I should remain here, where I am happy.” 

Jesse stood and paced. “Where you’re happy?” he echoed. There was something hurt and brittle in his voice, his face. His pacing reminded Hanzo of a caged animal. “And are you?” he asked suddenly. There was no barb in his words, but a very sudden kind of desperation. 

“Am I what?” Hanzo asked, suddenly feeling very tired. 

When Jesse stepped closer, he did so like an animal stalking its prey. Walking on his toes, his head low. He stopped when his shins bumped against the low table in their living room, keeping it between him and Hanzo. “Are you happy? Here? Or would you rather go back to where you’re apparently a fucking prince?” 

The question didn’t even occur to him and he paused. It was true that he had thought the words, especially when Genji had wished him happiness, but he hadn’t even considered the answer, if only because it was a ridiculous question. 

How could he be anything but happy? How could Hanzo not be filled with such joy whenever he looked at his wonderful human husband? 

“Yes,” Hanzo said simply. “Of course.” 

Jesse’s expression didn’t change, staring challengingly into Hanzo’s eyes. He leaned back, standing up straight. “What could a human possibly offer you?” he asked, his voice terrifyingly blank. “You were a prince. What am I?” 

Very slowly, as if afraid that any sudden movement would scare his wonderful human husband away—if he could even call Jesse his husband anymore—Hanzo stood. “I chose you that first night,” Hanzo said. “And I chose you every day after. Even when I thought of returning to my people, of the potential that one day I would have to leave. I chose to be here; I chose to be with _you_.” 

His wonderful, beautiful human mate, simply watched him. Hanzo stepped forward. “I had never lied about loving you.”

“You lied about a lot though,” Jesse said, his voice and face impassive. 

“I had never lied about who I was or who I loved,” Hanzo replied. “Just _what_ I was.” 

Jesse simply stared at him for a long time. “And what _are_ you, Hanzo?” 

Taking a brief moment to check that he had enough room and that the curtains were all closed, Hanzo resumed his true form. He grew; his bones shifted. Human fingernails became claws, skin gave way to waves of silver-blue and dark blue-grey. A tail sprouted from his bare human tailbone and he shifted to allow it to thread down one of the legs of his pants. 

His human face pushed out into a snout, his ears migrating to the top of his head. Closing his eyes, Hanzo allowed them to shift, allowed his vision to change before slowly opening them. 

As a human he had been baffled and disappointed to see less colors. Were humans really so blind? But now, in his true form, Hanzo could look at his wonderful human husband with all of the hues that humans had no names for. 

Light from the crack in the curtains fell on Jesse’s cheeks, caught on his eyelashes. If Hanzo had thought that his wonderful human mate had been beautiful before, he was blown away by the way he looked through his true eyes.

For a moment Hanzo was distracted by it and stared back at Jesse, eyes tracking the cascades of light as they exploded in dizzying colors over Jesse’s skin.

“You’re a werewolf,” Jesse said, his face unreadable.

Hanzo had to think about those words, his ears pricking forward to hear more of his beautiful human mate’s voice. It sounded different to his true ears as well and he drank the sounds in with gusto. Jesse’s face split as he laughed and Hanzo’s eyes lingered on the points of Jesse’s teeth, the flash of his tongue, the light on the whiskers of his beard. 

It wasn’t a laugh that Hanzo had ever heard from him, though. His laughs were warm, made affection curl in his chest—and he smiled when he laughed and it was infectious.

This laugh was a broken thing, a rush of sound as if squeezed out of him and ripped out of his throat. It was shards of broken glass, poised to hurt.

Then the words sank in. Werewolves were creatures in human belief that were part human and part wolf. They were monsters that preyed on humans, especially human children and could transform beneath the light of the full moon.

“A fucking alien werewolf,” Jesse added after another broken laugh. Unsure how to respond, Hanzo watched him, feeling strange that after knowing Jesse for so long, he had to look _down_ to him once. In this form he was taller than Jesse.

“Jess,” Fareeha said warningly. 

Jesse shook his head. He looked at Fareeha. “I can’t,” he said and turned to look back at Hanzo, tipping his head back to look up at him. “I can’t,” he said to Hanzo. “I need some time.” 

The primitive human language was difficult on his snout but for Jesse he would make the effort. “Of course,” he said very carefully. “Take all the time you need.” 

For a long moment Jesse stared up at him, his face unreadable. Then he shook his head and turned to the door. “If I leave...will you still be here when I return?” 

There was a lot that Hanzo could say to that. He wouldn’t be there if Jesse returned while he was at work or running errands. But that was not the question. 

“I will wait for you,” Hanzo said. It was useless to point out that the fleet—more importantly, his people—wouldn’t take him back. The heir apparent to his clan had given him his blessing to remain on Earth. 

Nobody would take him back. 

Perhaps not even his wonderful human mate. It didn’t make him love Jesse or yearn for him any less.

And it was useless to speculate that Hanzo’s lifespan may be longer than Jesse’s. Useless and morbid to mention that he may well wait forever for Jesse to return if he decided not to. But he would, he realized. He would wait out the rest of his life if that was necessary. 

Jesse nodded, still facing the door. “Alright,” he said and walked out the door. 

For a long moment there was silence in the living room. Then Hanzo sighed and sat down, feeling as if he deflated as he returned to his human form. “Thank you Fareeha,” Hanzo told Saty’s human betrothed. 

“Hanzo—”

Suddenly, for the first time in a long time, Hanzo felt dirty, as if he had rolled in dirt and mud. As if it had penetrated his outer coat and remained caught in his undercoat where he couldn’t reach it. Like he would need to scrub his skin and fur off just to feel clean again. 

“Thank you, Fareeha,” he said again and got to his feet. He felt as stretched as the seams of his clothes. “You may...you may stay as long as you would like. I’m…” he didn’t know. 

Turning, he shuffled toward the stairs and contemplated the open door of the master bedroom. Even empty of everything that Jesse had owned, it was still _their_ room. There was a stain on the wall from all the times that Jesse had leaned against it while he worked at the computer desk in the corner. 

Where the sheets were folded the way that Jesse liked on the bed with extras piled at the foot. 

Their scents still lingered, even to his weak human nose, in the mattress they had bought together, slept in together, for three years. 

Swallowing hard, Hanzo slowly closed the door to their bedroom. Across the hall was one of the guest rooms and he ducked in there instead. There were fewer memories of _them_ there. Fewer memories of Jesse. 

Peeling off his clothes—potentially ruined after two shifts—Hanzo crawled on top of the sheets and curled up. The bed was smaller than he was used to but that was fine. His grief would not take up space beside him.

* * *

He woke up later that evening, feeling as if he was one shake away from falling apart. The curtains were drawn over the windows of the guest room, bathing the room in shades of blue-grey. 

There was a faint golden glow coming from beneath the doorway and when he opened the door he found that someone must have left a light on. If he kept the lights off and used his natural eyes, he could pretend that the master bedroom was different. 

He pulled on a pajama shirt and a pair of sweatpants before making his way down the stairs. There was a note for him on the counter and his hopes lifted but he found that it was just from Fareeha, written in her blocky script. 

_I put away the groceries. Saty came over and we made you enchilada casserole._

He found a covered plate in the refrigerator as promised and warmed it up in the microwave. Jesse had always hated the thing, had insisted that microwaves were evil—in that joking way of his—and yet his eyes always held unease for it. Saty had been the one to discover that it was possible to turn off the beeping, which hurt their ears, and after that Jesse had accepted it.

Hanzo watched the numbers count down. Listened to the pops of food. It was a primitive human device that subjected cold food to electromagnetic radiation in the microwave frequency range—hence the name. Hanzo had always thought that it was one of the few things about humans that made sense.

Even though it no longer beeped so loudly, Jesse had still never cared for it. He had insisted that using it was cheating, that warming food up in the oven or on the stove was far superior.

His food popped again and the glass doors were splattered with red sauce. Hanzo opened the door to hear his food sizzling. From experience, he knew that half would be warm; the other half would be stone cold. Suddenly he wasn’t hungry and he considered skipping the meal. 

A big arm reached past him and opened the microwave; his plate was shoved roughly into his hands, followed by a fork and a knife. “ _Eat_ ,” Zarya said brusquely in their native tongue. “ _Or do you want to faint like some weak human wallflower?_ ” 

Hanzo let himself be urged into the dining room, where a small human woman sat. She smiled at Hanzo but seemed lost in her own thoughts. 

“ _I brought Mei with me,_ ” Zarya said. “ _It seems that we all had the loves we didn’t want to leave behind._ ”

But he nearly did—and when Hanzo finally told the truth, his beautiful, wonderful human mate asked to be free to leave. 

No, he corrected himself. He asked for time. Jesse wasn’t gone yet—he only needed time. 

“Eat,” the woman said sweetly. “We ate before we came here.” 

Hanzo looked away from her, looked away from the way that Zarya draped her arm around the woman’s shoulders. The way that Jesse used to do for him—a silent mark of belonging. At first Hanzo had shied away from it, not liking the sensation of someone’s—even Jesse’s—arm across his shoulders, so close to his neck. Eventually he learned to enjoy it, would lean into that one-armed embrace.

Now, knowing that Jesse wasn’t there—may never come back—it hurt. There would no longer be that warmth and weight across his shoulders, the squeeze of Jesse’s hand on his shoulder. The smell of Jesse’s soap and the occasional whiff of cigar smoke that lingered.

That was getting ahead of himself. Jesse had asked for time.

_But it could be forever_ , a part of him whispered. _He did not say how long. He may not return._

Somehow he ate but didn’t taste anything.

“ _Go to sleep,_ ” Zarya said, something like pity in her expression. “ _We’ll clean up and lock the door behind us._ ”

Hanzo didn’t remember standing or walking up the stairs. He didn’t remember contemplating the doors—the guest room, the master bedroom—and didn’t remember curling up in the guest bed again.

He didn’t remember shifting into his true form, curling around himself the way he hadn’t since he was a pup, with his tail curled over his snout, hiding his face.

The next morning, he woke up and got dressed. He warmed up food, ate it, and went to work; he returned, ate again, and slept in the guest room. Neither Saty nor Zarya mentioned his odd behavior. His personal secretary gave him sympathetic looks but said nothing of her thoughts or concerns. She did her job as competently as ever and a little more that wasn’t—such as reminding him to eat and making sure that he did. Making sure he drank water, took breaks.

It was just that Hanzo didn’t notice the time passing. As if Jesse had been tying him to the same timeline but without him, he was adrift.

The fourth night without Jesse, Hanzo was contemplating what to do for dinner when the front door opened. “ _I don’t need your pity_ ,” Hanzo said without turning away from the refrigerator. “ _You may as well leave._ ”

“I’m almost surprised to still find you here,” a familiar voice said. Very slowly, Hanzo turned and found Jesse standing in the kitchen behind him. “You look like shit,” Jesse added.

For a long moment they stood in the kitchen, staring at each other. Things left unsaid still hung in the air between them but Hanzo saw a band of gold around Jesse’s finger. He tried not to get his hopes up, tried not to think about what that might mean.

At last, Jesse sighed. “Come on. I want to talk to you.”

“Here is not a good place?”

Jesse looked at him. “No,” he said. “It’s not. Come on.”

Despite his excitement at seeing Jesse again, his apprehension about his decision, Hanzo was curious. He had been unwise earlier in letting Jesse have this much time. What if he had done something? Told anyone? It was no longer about himself anymore, had never been—what if Jesse had told someone about Saty and Zarya? 

Even as he wondered that, he knew that Saty at the very least would be safe. Jesse loved Fareeha dearly and would not barter her happiness; Zarya could take care of herself—there was a reason that she was one of the most sought-after bodyguards.

And this is Jesse.

“Very well,” Hanzo said and grabbed his keys to lock the door behind him. He followed Jesse into his primitive human car after he insisted on driving. As their neighborhood gave way to trees, Hanzo wondered where they were going. 

This was like something out of the human horror movies that Saty was disturbingly fond of. Driving in silence, leaving civilization behind, trading houses for trees. Here, there would be no witnesses. Perhaps he was being paranoid. 

Perhaps he was going mad, as the humans said; perhaps he was losing his mind. 

He’d heard of such things as a pup. It was a popular trope in romance novels: star-crossed lovers, a mateship denied. Both partners going mad. 

Hanzo watched the golden lights of the houses fade away into the distance. Now the darkness was only occasionally broken by the golden beam of a streetlight in the distance. Jesse turned them off the main highway to a dark dirt road. A few minutes’ drive down the road, well out of view of the highway, Jesse slid the car into park in front of a large metal gate with a sign that said PRIVATE PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING. Hanzo could see other such signs dotting the metal chain-link fence that stretched into the dark trees.

How often had he driven down that highway and not noticed this road? What was hidden beyond these trees and beyond that fence?

He watched Jesse climb out of the car to fiddle with the lock and open the gate; after driving the car through, Jesse got out to lock it behind them. Wordlessly, they continued to drive as the radio’s quiet music turned to static.

In some ways, Hanzo wasn’t surprised. The residential area they lived in was surrounded by thick trees and sometimes as they drove through, the radio in their primitive human vehicles would crackle with static.

They drove for a while longer down the dark tree-lined road before Jesse pulled into a clearing and parked. “Come on,” he said, turning to look at Hanzo.

Curious despite himself—and fairly certain that if Jesse truly intended to hurt him, he would probably survive—Hanzo climbed out of the vehicle and watched Jesse grab a small drawstring backpack from the backseat of the car.

Jesse gestured for Hanzo to follow him down a narrow dirt path into the woods. They walked for a while down the path, following a trail turned silver and white in the light of the Earth’s lonely moon.

They walked for a while in silence until the path led them into another clearing with a hill in the middle. Without hesitation, Jesse climbed to its summit while Hanzo paused at the edges of the trees.

“I’m sorry to have brought you all the way out here,” Jesse said without turning to look at Hanzo. “But we needed to be out where nobody else would be.” Hanzo watched from the trees as Jesse dropped the drawstring backpack at his feet and then began pulling off his shirt.

“Where are we?” Hanzo asked, looking around. He couldn’t even hear the sounds of the main highway with his weak human ears. Perhaps he could with his natural ears, but it was unlikely. The trees were silent, save for their whispers in the wind.

He tried not to look at Jesse’s bare chest in the moonlight, tried not to give into the temptation to see what colors would appear to his inhuman eyes. At the same time, he could hear Jesse pulling things out of his pockets and piling them on the ground in front of him. The keys to his vehicle. His communication device. His wallet.

“A friend of mine owns this area,” Jesse explained. “I come here every once in a while to stretch my legs. You should join me.”

Surprised, Hanzo turned to look at Jesse and found him standing, inexplicably naked, in the middle of the clearing. Humans had a strange taboo about nudity and Jesse was usually no different and yet…

Now he stood, his body bare, and stared challengingly at Hanzo. “Come on,” he told Hanzo. And, as Hanzo watched, his body changed.

His legs grew, his feet shifted; fur washed like waves of Jesse’s body. A tail sprouted and his face pushed out into a muzzle, his ears shifted to the top of his head.

Hanzo watched. Jesse was a werewolf—a _human_ werewolf, not the same as Hanzo’s people but very similar. Perhaps Jesse—and human werewolves—were distant descendants of a common ancestor.

It didn’t matter, though. Hanzo began pulling off his human clothes and felt one of the buttons of his shirt go flying off. At the top of the hill Jesse watched with golden eyes. Nude, Hanzo walked up toward him as he began his own transformation.

Seemingly reassured, Jesse finished his transformation, his back hunching. It forced him to all four legs though he did not fully resemble a natural Earth wolf. His back was sloped and his paws were still too human, his fingers still too long and clever to be used as natural Earth animals used their paws.

In Hanzo’s natural eyes, Jesse shone with the radiance of burning suns and swirling nebulae in a hundred different hues. Hanzo returned to his natural form and laughed. He was not as hunched over as Jesse was, didn’t have such long arms to match his long legs.

Hanzo shook himself, sighing at the feel of Earth’s lonely moon on his fur, the feel of the cool night air. He was somewhat disturbed to find that even standing nearly upright and Jesse standing on all fours, their shoulders were still nearly level.

Jesse’s tail gave a hesitant wag and Hanzo chuffed, leaning down to brush his nose against his wonderful werewolf mate’s; Jesse’s tail began to wag in earnest. He looked toward the trees and then back at Hanzo in invitation.

_Shall we run together?_

Hanzo’s people, for all their technological advancements, were still wild at heart. For the five years he had been marooned, Hanzo had not had a chance to have a good, long run like this.

“ _If you think that you can keep up with me,_ ” he said in his own language and from the look that Jesse gave him, Hanzo knew that he understood him nonetheless. With a bark of a laugh, Hanzo nipped playfully at Jesse’s thick ruff and turned to race off toward the trees.

With a howl and a bark that sounded like a laugh, Jesse chased after him.

**Author's Note:**

> Love it? Hate it? Let me know! I love hearing from you. 
> 
> You can also find me on Twitter at [Dracoduceus](https://twitter.com/dracoduceus).
> 
> ~DC


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